“I’m so glad to see you!” cried a lisping voice. “I’ve been waiting ever and ever and ever so long!” Sophy’s face looked almost pretty in her excitement. “I’m not going to ask you to come,” she continued, “for Honor says you must never be asked to do anything; but we want a grown-up man so dreadfully to talk to Peter. Peter won’t say anything, and he knows Sirius is dead. He thinks we’re only girls, and if you were only our brother, you would talk to him. I wish you were our brother!”
“But even if I am not, I can talk to Peter,” said Roger Madison, quickly, “and that is what you would like, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Sophy; “and I haven’t asked you, have I? Honor said, you know, that you must never be asked to do anything. I don’t exactly see why not. I wouldn’t mind asking you a bit, but I haven’t, have I?”
“Oh, no indeed! I’m coming entirely of my own free will. I want to talk to Peter.”
“How lovely!” said Sophy, as, with her hand tightly clasped in his, she skipped along at his side. “You are such a nice man. You would make a lovely brother. You see, everything was dreadful this afternoon, and Vic really cried!”
Sophy said this with the air of imparting a most unheard-of piece of news. That Vic should cry was to her almost as important as Peter’s broken leg.
“Come right upstairs,” said she, when they reached the house. “Come right up to Peter’s room.”
“I think you had better say that I am here,” said Madison, hesitating.
“Oh, why?” exclaimed Sophy, impatiently; but seeing that he was firm in regard to this, she ran upstairs and peeped into Peter’s room. He was still lying with his face turned away, and she did not look far enough to see that Victoria was sitting behind the door. She ran down again as quickly as she had gone up and once more grasped Mr. Madison by the hand.
“It is all right,” she said. “Come right up.”